Hi there. I want to combine multiple InDesign files into a single, editable document. I do not want to use the book feature because I need to remove pages from my final document, and I need the rest of the pages to renumber correctly after I do that. When I use the "move pages" feature, I get a weird thing in my pages panel where it treats them as two separate layouts. I just want one layout. What's the best way to achieve this?

Thanks for the tip about the layouts. With regards to the books, I want to delete just one or two pages from each document in my book. From what I can tell, that's not possible--unless I'm missing something?

With a book file, you will not have multiple copies. The Book Panel is an organizational tool that links to your InDesign files, and allows you to open them from one place. It also allows the auto-numbering (as mentioned before), and syncing of styles and master pages.

Yes, but I need to change things about the content of the individual documents. I need to delete pages from them, and also change some text. I don't want to make those changes in the original documents, as those need to remain intact for other purposes.

You won't be able have just one copy of the files if you need to "Make changes, and keep the originals intact". Whether you use the book feature of not, what you want to do will require separate copies of the documents. (Original and Changed)

Ideally, I'd like to have my separate, original documents and also a version of the combined documents in one editable InDesign file. It seems like this shouldn't be that difficult to achieve. I tried again to combine my documents using the "move pages" feature, but the second layout/document came in with shortened text boxes (so there's overset text everywhere) and it changed my paragraph and character styles so that the body font is different in some places. Even though both original documents use the exact same styles for everything. Argh.

What is the difference between copying the original documents and the book and making copies of the documents? You still wind up with two of each but with the copy of the book it’s much easier to manage.

the second layout/document came in with shortened text boxes (so there's overset text everywhere) and it changed my paragraph and character styles so that the body font is different in some places. Even though both original documents use the exact same styles for everything.

This generally happens when the style Names are the same between documents, but there is some difference in the style definitions.

-- This includes a difference in the Definition of [Basic Paragraph], if any of the styles are based upon it.

I don't find a book easier to manage. I want to be able to see the whole document at once, not imagine what it would look like together. One of the things I have to change is internal references to page numbers in the body of the text. Like, "use the XYZ form on page 22" will have to be changed to "use the XYZ form on page 45." It will be much easier for me to make those changes if I can actually see the page number the forms have moved to.

Ideally, I'd like to have my separate, original documents and also a version of the combined documents in one editable InDesign file. It seems like this shouldn't be that difficult to achieve. I tried again to combine my documents using the "move pages" feature, but the second layout/document came in with shortened text boxes (so there's overset text everywhere) and it changed my paragraph and character styles so that the body font is different in some places. Even though both original documents use the exact same styles for everything. Argh.

This is a style conflict when several documents are merged into one single one. That Is why a book file would make it easier to work with. If you insist—what no one will understand why—put all your styles in each document in a folder with a different name and then move the pages into the merged document.

Another problem could be different baseline grid settings in different documents. The only solution is to work with a book. Merging into one document has no easy solution.

Unfortunately, I didn't create the files. They came from an outside vendor and there are too many of them too close to production to change stuff like that. I think they set it up that way because the referenced forms are placed PDFs and there's nowhere to put a text anchor or style to use in a cross reference. If it were me, I would have set up the files much differently (this is just the tip of the iceberg for the wonky formatting), but this is what I have to work with.